Women In Business 2013

For the past 11 years, Inside Business has been honoring women in business in Hampton Roads who have made a significant impact on the community, within their industry and by helping lift up other women on the road to success.

By honoring these women, we seek to encourage them and other women to trust their abilities, strengthen their self-confidence and participate in the economic growth of Hampton Roads.

From helping people manage their wealth, to leading local nonprofits, to overseeing the health and safety of the area's largest employer and builder of ships, to operating a farm, these women have vital roles in the community.

Our hope is this recognition will spur them on to even greater things. We're proud to introduce them to you and present them with this honor.– Carol Lichti, Editor of Inside Business

The judges:

Anne C.H. Conner
President of Public Finance and Community Investment
TowneBank
2003 Women in Business honoree

Updated:December 17, 2013 - 11:02 am

Posted:December 13, 2013

In October 2002, Carla Bailey was a new mom. With a husband in the military, the former Hampton city police officer wanted to provide her child some stability and change careers, so both parents weren't working dangerous jobs.

Updated:December 17, 2013 - 11:00 am

Posted:December 13, 2013

Since joining the Norfolk-based accounting firm in 1996, Caron Crouse has worked her way up to become the first female office managing partner at Dixon Hughes Goodman LLP.

The Moyock, N.C., resident is the administrator who oversees staffing, logistics and strategic direction in the Norfolk and Virginia Beach office. Through the company's Women's Forward Initiative, Crouse is helping to increase the number of female partners throughout its 10 offices.

Updated:December 17, 2013 - 11:06 am

Posted:December 13, 2013

Growing up in Hampton, Courtney Darden was surrounded by military kids who had traveled the world. Wanting to get paid for the same opportunity without becoming a flight attendant, Darden started Uniglobe Travel World, a full-service travel agency in 1990.

For the last 11 years, she juggled the Hampton-based business while working full-time as the assistant vice president and director of marketing at the Williamsburg Winery, a position she left in August to open her own marketing firm - Designing Communications Group, also based in Hampton.

Updated:December 17, 2013 - 10:55 am

Posted:December 13, 2013

Cynthia Bischoff was a professor in Old Dominion University's business school in the late 1990s when she realized she wanted something different. A colleague told her he thought she climbed the wrong mountain and suggested she leap off.

"I said 'I'm afraid. I want to land with my feet on the ground,'" Bischoff said. "Then he said, 'Well, what if you're supposed to fly instead?'"

Updated:December 17, 2013 - 11:04 am

Posted:December 13, 2013

Dawn Boyer has seen her share of trouble.

She has been laid off twice - once in 2004, the same year her father died and the same year two close friends died - and again in 2009. She's been through a divorce. She watched as her mother suffered from Alzheimer's.

But her misfortunes didn't stop her. She remarried and has raised three daughters. After her second layoff, she went back to school, at Old Dominion University, where she earned her Ph.D. in education

Updated:December 17, 2013 - 11:03 am

Posted:December 13, 2013

Who knew a cupcake shop would be a sweet spot in a sour economy?

Six months after Dawn Eskins opened Carolina Cupcakery in Chesapeake, the stock market crashed. It didn't stop people from coming through the doors and the response prompted her to write the book - "Cupcake Confessions: How the Great Recession Inspired a Sweet Obsession."

"People were crazy," Eskins said, explaining that on three separate occasions how she was forced to call police.

Updated:December 17, 2013 - 10:49 am

Posted:December 13, 2013

In her 30 years there, Dru Branche has held jobs in almost every division at Newport News Shipbuilding.

She's been in accounting, warehousing, logistics and marketing. She even oversaw topside construction - which is everything except propulsion - of a few aircraft carriers. Branche didn't expect to do all of that when she joined in 1983; it just happened.

"It's a great place to work," said Branche, who is two years into her job as environmental, health and safety director. "It's a land of opportunity."

Updated:December 20, 2013 - 1:56 pm

Posted:December 13, 2013

Elizabeth Wallace Rountree has spent decades advancing "good causes," those who know her said, and she's not done yet.

Rountree is an adept fundraiser, helping raise millions of dollars for Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters, diabetes, domestic abuse prevention and more. She is now vice president for development for the local Goodwill Industries Inc. arm, working in part to bolster the organization internally and expand its footprint externally.

Updated:December 17, 2013 - 10:57 am

Posted:December 13, 2013

Randi Vogel went from entrepreneurship to corporate America to entrepreneurship.

In the summer of 1996, after graduating from Virginia Wesleyan, she and her grandfather sold fish on the corner of High Street and Elm Avenue in Portsmouth six days a week. She did pharmaceutical sales after that and then went on to co-own a business: Virginia Beach's Hunt Club Farm.

Updated:December 17, 2013 - 10:54 am

Posted:December 13, 2013

When she was a little girl, Susan Pilato used to sit behind her father's office desk. He was the co-owner of the former Green Gifford Chrysler-Plymouth-Nissan dealership, and she was pretending to be the boss.

Pilato doesn't pretend anymore. She and business partner Donna Counts run the show at Pilato & Counts Interior Design, and she has built a strong client base in two decades of business. Her father's example has helped guide her.